Internet Marketing – Essential Tools

By now, you will have learned that my whole philosophy on internet marketing has changed. If you don’t know what I’m on about, check out some of my previous posts and you will see that I am now putting all of my efforts into helping you! I wont be promoting anybody’s products or launches unless I know for sure that they will help you, either by opening new profit streams for you, or because they are tools that will save you time! And I will only be promoting stuff that I use in my own business. So don’t expect a massive stream of emails from me come guru launch day. I’ll need to try things out properly before I even consider promoting them.

OK, that said, there are a few things that are an essential part of your internet marketing “toolbox”. Things that you can’t do without if you really want to make money online. Sure, you can succeed at online marketing without spending any money, but it’s much easier if you have the right tools. It’s a bit like DIY. Sure you can put in a screw with a knife, but it’s a whole load easier to use a screwdriver!

If there is a free option, I will look it out for you, but some of the tools, you will need to buy! Sorry, but that’s the way it is is any business. You wouldn’t go into business as a car mechanic without buying a set of tools! And there are certain skills you need – unless you are going to pay someone else to do the “grunt” work (a good option further down the line). Again, you wouldn expect a car mechanic to have learned how to work on an engine before working on your car!

So, what are the essentials?

A website and/or blog

If you are going to do business online, you need to have a web presence of your own. Somewhere that people can find your products, optin pages, reviews and recommendations.

Paid option – Register your own domain name and buy a hosting package

Recommended suppliers:

Godaddy - Domain names
Namecheap - Domain names
GVO – Hosting (web hosting, autoresponder service and more rolled into one affordable package)
Hostgator - Hosting

Free option – set up a blog on a web 2.0 service

Recommended suppliers:

www.wordpress.com
www.blogger.com

I would always go with the paid. If I am selling a product I have called PLR Unleashed, what is more credible: www.plrunleashed.com or plrunleashed.wordpress.com. I know if I was buying a weight loss product, I’d be more likely to buy it from www.plrunleashed.com!

Also, the free blog services have limited functionality and strict usage policies, so you cannot install all of the plugins on your blog that you might want,a nd you don’t own the site. The providers reserve the righ to disable your website at any time!

Most hosting packages now come with something called Fantastico. This is a neat application that lets you install scripts on your web hosting package with just a few clicks of a mouse. Like installing a blog!

An autoresponder service

You’ll have heard that the money is in the list, and it’s true. Let’s say for instance that you have a weightloss website. You have spent time and effort generating traffic to your site and you get 100 visitors a day. Awesome. Well done. BUT out of those 100 only one person buys your product. The rest just leave your website and carry on surfing for the information you need. OUCH.

So, instead of letting them leave empty handed, you make them an offer they cannot refuse. An ebook, audio or video that will help to solve (some) of their problem, and all you ask in return is that they give you their name and email address. Great, so now of the 100, let’s say 20 people take you up on your unmissable offer.

Now you can email them regularly offering advice and building a relationship with them. You come across as a helpful person who has freely given advice. Do you think they are more likely to buy your product? Sure they are!

Recommended suppliers:

Paid option – a fully functioning autoresponder service taht allows you to collect names and email addresses, broadcast messages to your list, prepare a follow up series that will automatically be sent to new subscribers at pre-defined intervals, allows subscribers to manage their subscription and unsubscribe when they want to (a CANN Spam requirement)

Aweber
GetResponse
GVO (web hosting, autoresponder service and more rolled into one affordable package)

Free option

Use your own email address and just get people to email you for further information. Not good!

Or, www.listwire.com which is a free autoresponder service, but with limited functionality.

That’s it! These are the essential tools that you need. Of course there are other great tools out there that can save you time and effort, but to start off, you can get by with just:

A domain name
A hosting account for your blog / website
An autoresponder service

So if you’re ready, grab those essential tools and prepare yourself for the next leg of the journey!

As for essential skills? We’ll cover those next time, but in a nutshell, you will need to know your way around CPANEL (that’s your website hosting control panel), you should know at tleast the basics of HTML (the coding language for websites) and you’ll need to know you way around your autoresponder service.

If you are going to sell your own products, you’ll need to know how to create a product (ebooks, audio, video or software) and if you’re going to work as an affiliate, selling other people’s products for a commission, you’ll need to know how to do that too.

But don’t worry, I will cover all of that in future posts!